Bob Arctor

Hasn't Dominic Raab just resigned in protest at himself?

There is an advert on the bus telling me I can go and see the Coca Cola Christmas truck at Fox Valley. There is a free bus service if I want to go and look at the truck. Can anyone tell me why I'd want to do this? Thanks

Very interesting legal case just recently - the Taxpayers Alliance admitted that in describing one of its former employees as a "Walter Mitty fantasist", "so-called whistleblower" and "complete liar" for the crime of, wait for it.... divulging their illegal overspending by the Vote Leave campaign during the Brexit referendum. Main points are: They admitted to wrongful dismissal, unfair dismissal, direct discrimination and dismissal by reason of a philosophical belief in the sanctity of British democracy of the whistleblower They co-ordinated with 9 other right-wing lobby groups that all occupy the same building. These include the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Vote Leave, Business for Britain (another right-wing pro-Brexit group), The European Foundation (ditto), Global Vision (ditto), Leave Means Leave (ditto), the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies. These organisations are often quoted in the mainstream media as 'think tanks' and presented as disparate groups, yet they all seem very closely linked; one could almost say they are different names for the same group, giving the misleading impression that they present a broad variety of right wing opinion in the UK, rather than the views of a small number of influential, wealthy individuals The Taxpayers Alliance acted in concert with 10 Downing Street to smear the whistleblower By conceding all the whistleblower's allegations, they avoided having to disclose details of their funders in court. The whistleblower's barrister said "“It is incredibly unusual for a respondent to make a complete concession on liability as the respondent has here. To wave a white flag to avoid disclosing documents and giving evidence in court is really unusual. They conceded everything.". This begs the question of who does fund them if it's so important not to disclose this information. We can be fairly certain it's not people who pay very much tax, I think.

Cheers Ghozer, you are a good 'un

Thanks, I just downloaded it but don't have WinZip so can't unzip it, have used up my trial version.

I have a Lenovo laptop with Qualcomm Atheros Bluetooth and the drivers are up to date. I also have one of these. The laptop can find the soundbase but after use always loses it again and I have to disconnect the bluetooth connection and re-connect them. Other devices have no difficulty connecting with the soundbase so the laptop seems to be the problem. I would like to try different bluetooth drivers but it looks like Intel no longer do them for Windows 10. Can anyone suggest an alternative to Qualcomm? thanks

Sheffield was on the long list but didn't make the short list. There was some hope that Sheffield would get to host one of the creative hubs but those have gone to Bristol and Glasgow, so it looks like there might have been a decision made based on geographical spread, rather than having a hub close to the HQ. Suggesting that the decision has owt to do with HS2 and the airport is likely hobby horsing. Doubtless every other decision that doesn't go in Sheffield's favour in future will be attributed to those by some people.

That turnout is truly pathetic

You don't have any dignity, your brain is empty. ---------- Post added 18-10-2018 at 19:58 ---------- Maybe they should have pointed this out before the referendum so that people could make a more informed decision.

Well, good job Theresa May called that snap election to strengthen her hand in the negotiations.

Thanks, that's great to know, I'll be there

I was part of the anti-poll tax campaign and am dreading the introduction of Universal Credit. There is another thread about the problems UC is going to cause; in this thread I want to talk about starting a local campaign against it, hopefully this will link in with other campaigns around the country as resistance to it grows. UC will be introduced in Sheffield in November and December. I'd be interested to hear from people who want to and are able to commit some time to getting a campaign off the ground. People involved with an existing organisation (e. g. a trade union or existing campaign group) would obviously be particularly helpful, but individuals too.

Possibly worth checking if any more crowns are required or justified. I had a crown replaced on the NHS about 5 years ago, cost me 180 quid, but I had a new crown put in at no extra cost, because the cost was for 'crown treatment' - no limit on the number of crowns included in that, apparently.

Thirdly, it's possible (I would say probable) that the point of austerity was to meet a right wing ideological desire to shrink the role of the state, using the financial crisis and corresponding slump in tax revenue as cover. The Tories have shown themselves to be particularly ideologically opposed to local government and the effects of that are really starting to bite now, even in Tory-run councils. In fact, Tories in local government who believe in local government are almost in a different party to national Tory politicians.

Here's a good example of austerity not working at all: harsh cuts to early years services to help families of young children where they face difficulties = greater spending on taking children into care, where early help can prevent that. Also, in the longer term, greater spending on mental health, criminal justice, substance misuse services because children from families with problems grow up as less functional adults https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/12/early-years-cuts-pushing-more-children-into-care-in-england

You're displaying your ignorance here. For a start, the first language of the Roma people in Sheffield is Slovakian, not Romany. Second, my kids go to a school with lots of Roma kids, plus a right bag of mashings. The kids can talk to each other perfectly well and the school has a great atmosphere and is a safe environment. I'm not pretending that the Slovakian Roma kids don't arrive with some behavioural problems from their ghettoisation and educational apartheid in Slovakia, but they can and do learn and change. The idea that children can't speak to each other is risible.

Does it chuff. I was in Trafalgar Square for the poll tax riot. THAT was a riot, this was nothing close. A fight, yes. A brawl, very possibly. A riot? Give over.

I think he means the people who have to remain in work to be able to claim any help towards their housing costs and therefore stay in the UK. Because he is ignorant.

Perhaps you can explain why your rumour-mongering is helpful? The same goes for everyone who had a quick ride on the bandwagon to bash whichever ethnic group they don't like. Clearly it was an unpleasant incident but since some of the key 'details' are now being dismissed as untrue, there is no point in speculating on what may or may not have happened. I notice that The Star, the shame of Sheffield, are now terming it a 'RIOT' on their cack website, but the only people who termed it a riot in the first place were the Sheffield Star. Still, it doubtless got a good amount of traffic to the page where they had sold advertising space and they can now go to their clients and say 'look how many hits that page got' and make some good money out of it, so that's the main thing.

I remember one mate got hold of some rifle cartridges (nicked them off his dad) which we dropped the heavy concrete benches on to try to make them fire across the playground. No, I don't know what we were thinking either. Another kid spent a lot of time outside of school trying to make a functioning bomb, just for fun. Although neither of these things were done in anger against anyone else. It is very worrying if kids are taking knives and even guns into a school, although I would take any kid's claim that a gun was seen with a good degree of skepticism without further evidence, they do tend to exaggerate.

It certainly seems to be about socioeconomics, those with the money are moving to cooler places or on higher ground, where the property prices are going up, and those in lower incomes have to settle for rising temperatures and sea levels. On that basis you might expect people on lower incomes to vote against politicians who support making the planet hotter for short term economic advantage. Whether that's what happens in practice I don't know

I've been reading recently about how people are starting to move in significant numbers from hotter places in the US, such as Phoenix, to cooler places such as Flagstaff (both in Arizona) because the temperatures are rising steadily. And in Florida people are starting to move to places higher above sea level because of concerns over sea level rise, and areas close to sea level are seeing property prices drop. Both states voted for Trump in 2016 but by small margins. If people acknowledge climate change in where they live and move to, it begs the question "Why vote for a climate change denier?" And will they vote differently next time?

She's demanding respect from the EU now. Like "Go whistle", that sort of thing

It was what people voted for at a time when the papers had endless benefit fraud stories on their front pages. When one political class has the media at its disposal to influence public opinion and the people at the bottom don't, that's when people understandably lose any faith in liberal democracy being democratic. Why should the OP even vote? Who is going to change the status quo? No-one.

Not a lot if the middle class and rich had been forced to pay more taxes to make up the shortfall. It was a political choice to target the worst off and most ill in order to spare swing voters in marginal constituencies.